Nerves

Tonight is my first main raid on my hunter, and I’m super excited! I’m also kind of nervous though. I’ve been playing my hunter in my guild’s alt raid for a bit and I’ve been doing pretty well there, but it’s a bit different than joining our main raiders who outgear me by 25 ilvls. I just don’t want to be bad!

I know my Druid like the back of my hand and I’m very confident (maybe even arrogant) about my abilities. Don’t get too many gear upgrades? Wearing the ‘wrong’ non-tier piece? Forget to switch to the optimal talent before a fight? Whatevs, my healing still be awesome.

DPS doesn’t work like that though, it’s a whole different mindset. Gear can most definitely hold me back as a hunter. Even if I play perfectly, I’m still not going to be able to touch the other dps until my gear catches up a bit more. I’m going to need to worry about optimal talents and the best spec for each fight. Also, the fact that it looks like BM is parsing above the other specs is upsetting. I haven’t liked that spec since… well, ever. Anything but Beast Master! Currently I personally do better as Survival, so I guess that means I need to practice as BM some more. I also have almost 100k less health than everyone else right now, meaning I’ll have to be extra proactive about damage mitigation. That’s something I’m pretty good at, but the more I use Deterrence, the worse my damage, so that’s something to think about too.

Anyway, I’m excited for tonight! Let’s hope I don’t carry my weapon (or should I say no weapon) curse into raid with me. I’m also open to any hunter tips for Siege. Wish me luck.

8 responses to “Nerves”

I just posted a long thing on guild forums discussing what specs to use on every fight that I can cross post here if you’re interested. Basically, I’m of the opinion (and our other hunters seem to agree) that hunters are going to want to be capable of both BM and SV right now.

BM isn’t as bad as it used to be fyi. Pets just do not take damage anymore, and while pet movement is still not very good, the range on KC, removal of focus cost for dash, and things like Blink Strikes remove most of the headaches. KC range was the worst – if the boss moved, the pet would be 1yd out of range for a second and mess up your rotation. So glad those days are gone.

The problem with BM is that I find it’s front-loaded with all those cooldowns but once those are used, it feels very slow and like there’s not a whole lot to do. I also hope there are no fights like Ji-Kun this tier that like to despawn pets. SVs a bit more reactionary because of L&L and I feel the rotation is more dynamic and interesting.

I’ve mostly run as Survival. BM is definitely worlds better than it used to be, but I don’t like the playstyle as much. So I’ve pretty much stuck as Survival. If there are any fights that are significantly better, I’ll switch, but I’m not hardcore enough to not have fun for minor DPS gains.

I’ll try to sum up, so I don’t take up the whole comment log :p The short of it is for final numbers BM is almost always *slightly* better, but might not be as conducive to success – your raid needs you on the right targets at the right times, not the ones that maximize meters. I think BM is a bit weaker on target switching and not-tightly-packed aoe.

Immerseus: It really doesn’t matter. The adds die so quickly regardless of spec. I’ll probably be trying BM on our heroic attempts because the mechanics don’t really limit BM.
Fallen Protectors: SV. SV is the most competitive on this fight anyway
Norushen: BM. The adds don’t live long enough for serpent sting spreading to be worth it and movement range is trivial.
Sha of Pride: BM. There is aoe on this fight, but it’s pretty trivial. The only issue is I don’t know if pets benefit from Gift of the Titans?
Galakras: SV. Just a ton of aoe and if you have to do a tower, waiting on a lagging pet would suck.
Iron Juggernaut: BM, no question
Dark Shaman: I wasn’t in for this, but both specs look very close
Nazgrim: SV. I don’t think moving the pets to adds is trivial, and just leaving the pet on the boss is unacceptable. Better facilitates SV imo.
Malkorok: BM, no question
Spoils: Leaning towards BM. I think I have the weakest grasp of this fight out of all 14, but most mobs did not seem to last very long and target swapping is trivial with the cramped location. AoE was also almost non existant.
Thok: BM all the way. Even with switching to the jailers, still BM. If enrage timer becomes a problem we’d be a good candidate to just stay on the boss even during this phase, but I don’t think we should do this without conferring with the RL.
Siegecrafter: Depends on role. If we’re doing conveyor belt, I think the best choice is BM and to ignore the crawling mines in favor of other range (getting in range of them takes us too far away from the belt and saps a ton of boss dps). If we’re on the main platform full time, I can see SV being strongest unless we want to only have a few people dedicated to mines for some reason
Paragons: BM. No real aoe iirc, and no target switching concerns.
Garrosh: I expressed my support for SV here already. If we want to min max only having certain people handle certain adds, BM could go full time on boss or something. But I think SV offers more freedom to compensate for perceived deficiencies if needed. Say the desecrated weapon needs more attention – you don’t want to have your pet bolt out to BFE aand back. Same if MC targets need more attention.

The difference between SV and BM is pretty small anyway. You have to factor in that the front page of WoL is a ridiculously small sample size, and that – although I don’t know if this is the case – it tells you nothing of the average. A weapon that does 500-600 is the same DPS as 400-700, but the latter is going to get the top rankings, if that makes sense

Thanks, Esoth! Very interesting. As a general rule, any fight that doesn’t allow for good Black Arrow uptime is likely bad for Survival. (And Crows, for that matter.)

Immerseus could go either way. The later half of the fight doesn’t have much boss up time and is mostly adds, but depending on placement of the adds, Survival could be better. I’d lean BM in theory.
Protectors: Agreed, SV.
Norushen: Yeah, essentially single target. You’ll always have a BA target except during the Trial. Probably BM for the theoretical gain, but whichever you are better at, for sure.
Pride: I’m also not sure about Gift of the Titans spreading. BM might be better if your pet keeps attacking while you are in a Prison, but that should be short anyway. BM does have better burst for the sub-30%. SV is fully capable though, no handicap.
Galakras: Yes, definitely SV.

Past that I’m unfamiliar with, but if add switching is constant on Spoils and thus doesn’t allow good BA uptime, then BM sounds better. For Paragons, rolling Serpent Sting on two targets MIGHT be beneficial, but again I’m not familiar enough with the fight to know for sure. I wonder if any of the Paragon buffs interact better with one spec or the other. Or negatively with pets? (Hopefully we’d avoid those anyway.)